


Unconventional

by hmweasley



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: ATLA Secret Santa, F/M, Getting Together, Oblivious Sokka (Avatar), Post-Avatar: The Last Airbender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:27:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28315989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hmweasley/pseuds/hmweasley
Summary: Toph is done dealing with Sokka, so she decides to take a break from rush in Republic City at the Jasmine Dragon in Ba Sing Se.
Relationships: Toph Beifong & Iroh, Toph Beifong & Katara, Toph Beifong/Sokka
Comments: 5
Kudos: 25





	Unconventional

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [sassydoilies](https://sassydoilies.tumblr.com/) as part of the [ATLA Secret Santa](https://atla-secret-santa.tumblr.com/).

Iroh eyed the sulking Toph sitting at one of the tables in his shop as he headed back to the counter after giving tea to a customer. The earthbender had claimed the same spot in the Jasmine Dragon for several days, and though Iroh would never send her away, he was rather worried that he was still as sullen as she’d been when she’d arrived in the city.

Glancing around to make sure there were no customers who needed him, Iroh headed for the small corner table where Toph had propped her feet up. Despite not having her feet on the ground, she heard him coming, and she at least guessed who was pulling out the chair across from her because she didn’t say a thing as Iroh sat down.

“I have to say, Toph,” he began, “I wasn’t expecting to see you in Ba Sing Se for a while. Not that I don’t appreciate the visit, but we both know it’s not your favorite place to be, and I definitely wasn’t expecting you to come alone whenever you returned.”

Toph’s bottom lip protruded slightly as she picked at a loose string on her shirt.

“It’s not as bad here as it used to be,” she said with a shrug.

Iroh couldn’t help but sigh. He reached for the untouched teapot that he’d sat by Toph hours ago. Holding his hand against the porcelain, Iroh quickly had the tea at a proper temperature again. He poured a cup and pushed it towards Toph, careful to place it far enough away from her feet that she wouldn’t send it flying across the shop on accident. He was quite fond of the set he’d given her.

“Still,” Ioh said, taking a sip of his own tea, “I take it that something prompted the trip. Last I heard you were quite busy in Republic City.”

Toph snorted, but she reached for her tea and took a sip, which Iroh considered its own victory.

“It’s kind of busy, yeah,” she said with a shrug. “It’s not that bad. There’s just so many people around all the time. It gets kind of loud.”

Iroh didn’t bother to mention that Ba Sing Se still had significantly more people than Republic City. Toph didn’t need to be told that. He understood that Toph’s standing as a friend of Avatar Aang meant something very different in Republic City than it did in his tea shop in Ba Sing Se. Toph had been recognized a few times since she’d arrived, but no one was demanding her help on anything like he imagined certain people were back in the place she currently called home.

“Ah, so this is a relaxing vacation of sorts,” Iroh said. “Tea is a good aid in that, but if it's relaxation that you want, I have other recommendations that you might enjoy. There are far better things to do than just sitting around here all day.”

Toph squirmed, her face contorting as she considered the offer.

“Maybe,” she muttered before taking another drink of tea. “I don’t really care. Sokka was just being a pain, and I needed to get away. I didn’t think much about what I’d do once I got here.”

Her cheeks turned pink, and Iroh couldn’t help but smile, glad that Toph’s feet were still propped up so she couldn’t see. It felt like they were finally getting closer to answers about the mystery of her arrival. Iroh hadn’t been oblivious to how she and Sokka had begun to behave around each other as they got older. Since Toph had become an adult, it had only been clearer, though Iroh could also tell that very little had actually happened between them.

He allowed himself a small chuckle though and pretended not to notice Toph’s stiff posture.

“Despite never having been on the receiving end of it myself, I do understand that Sokka can be on the intense side once he gets into one of his plans.”

Toph’s frown deepened.

“Yeah,” she said into the tea. “But that’s not really…”

She hesitated and downed the rest of her tea before she decided how to continue voicing her thoughts. Straightening her shoulders, she said, “Sokka’s actually not talking to me much at all. He does when he has to, about important stuff, but other than that… Nothing. And I don’t get why, so I tried to ask him, but he got even weirder and said a bunch of stuff about how everything’s normal and I should stop reading into stuff. So, I got annoyed and left.”

Iroh watched her closely, noting the expressions that passed across her face unwillingly. He wondered if Toph understood what was causing Sokka’s distance more than she was letting on. There had been a handful of times where she’d let her guard down for Iroh over the years, but most of the time, she kept such walls up that Iroh genuinely wasn’t sure what she was thinking. He couldn’t read her with quite the same efficiency as he could Zuko.

He poured her another cup of tea.

“That does sound frustrating,” he said. “I can understand why you needed a break. Though I must say, leaving the city doesn’t do much in the way of getting him to speak to you, does it?”

Toph snorted.

“No,” she admitted. “Obviously not.”

They fell silent. Iroh busied himself with sipping his tea, giving Toph the time she needed to consider her next words.

“I want to stay a few more days,” she said. “Then I’ll go back.”

Iroh smiled gently before getting up to greet a newly arrived customer.

* * *

Toph had come to Ba Sing Se to be left alone. Okay. So, she had also been hoping for a bit of wisdom from Iroh, but other than that, she had hoped to be left alone. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew that Aang and Katara would be leaving the Northern Water Tribe soon, and it wasn’t much of a stretch that they’d stop at Ba Sing Se for a visit with Iroh on their way back to Republic City.

It wasn’t surprising, but it was somehow unexpected. And unwelcome.

Toph knew that she looked hostile despite Aang and Katara being two of her closest friends. Aang had greeted her and stuttered out an excuse about seeing some of the city before fleeing the tea shop. Katara was braver. She was still sipping on her tea across from Toph at the table. Her gaze flickered over to the younger woman frequently, but she didn’t speak.

“Just ask,” Toph said with a scowl. “I know you want to, and this silence is getting to me.”

“We didn’t expect you to be here,” Katara said. “Not that seeing you isn’t a welcome surprise. We just thought it would be a few more days. And you seem a little…”

“Grumpy?” Toph finished once Katara’s waffling was too much to handle.

Katara sighed, her shoulders slumping.

“Yes, that,” she said. “Did something happen while we were gone?”

Toph snorted and downed the rest of her tea in one go, a move that would have scandalized Iroh if he’d seen it.

“When doesn’t something happen in Republic City? That place can’t go two seconds without some kind of crisis.”

Katara pressed her lips together but didn’t say anything. They both knew it was true. It was probably expected in a place that was so new compared to the places that surrounded it, not that knowing that made it any easier to deal with.

“You’re not this sullen because of something with Republic City,” Katara pointed out, leaning in close to avoid being overheard by the other customers. Not that any of them particularly cared to listen to their conversation. Toph could tell that not a single one of them had recognized who they were.

She shrugged in response to Katara’s words. Leaning back in her chair, she propped her feet up on the table. She didn’t want to see the way Katara was watching her anymore, though she still heard the noise of embarrassment Katara made in response, and she could imagine Katara looking self-consciously at the other customers even though she couldn’t see it.

It was silent for a moment before Katara spoke again, a slight hint of nerves in her voice.

“Is this about Sokka?”

Toph froze. Had she been that obvious? She had genuinely thought that Katara hadn’t noticed a thing. Or maybe that was just what she had hoped. She was suddenly grateful that she had her feet propped up and couldn’t sense Katara’s satisfaction in her body language. Her cheeks were warm, and that was mortifying enough.

“It is,” Katara said with satisfaction. She deflated a second later. “I thought things were changing between the two of you. Especially after…”

She trailed off awkwardly, but Toph didn’t need her to finish. They both knew that things had started changing after Sokka and Suki had mutually decided to call it quits. Toph was grateful not to have it spoken aloud.

“Did he do something to screw things up?” Katara asked instead.

Toph snorted and tilted her head back towards the ceiling in a thinly veiled attempt to hide the expression on her face.

“I don’t know what you’re on about, Katara, but since when does Sokka do anything without screwing it up?”

Katara didn’t answer, but Toph sensed that she’d fallen into deep thinking mode, which was more than Toph could bear in the moment. She dropped her feet to the ground, trying to ignore the return of sensing Katara’s body language.

“I’m going to practice some bending,” Toph muttered, hurrying from the shop before Katara could stop her.

* * *

Toph breathed in deeply and focused on the ground beneath her. The rocky outcropping in the park was her favorite place in the city. The only downside was that the rocks had clearly been put there through human intervention. They didn’t have the deep connections to the earth that rocks often did. Even where the ground had been dug out to place them in the ground, Toph felt that the soil didn’t cling to the rock the way it would if they’d had a longer relationship with each other.

That didn’t matter because it was all she had in the city. Most of the time, the amount of metal in the place didn’t bother her. If anything, it gave her a chance to show off her metalbending, but now and then, she couldn’t escape the desire to be among the dirt and rocks that she was so intimately familiar with.

She felt Sokka approaching long before he thought she could. It wasn’t surprising that he’d find her eventually. Katara had implied that she was going to speak to him when Toph had accompanied her and Aang back to the city, and Toph’s protests hadn’t done a thing to change the waterbender’s mind. Toph watched as Sokka moved a little closer to her chosen spot only to freeze and backtrack a few steps. The process repeated itself over and over, gradually bringing Sokka to where Toph sat on top of one of the larger rocks in the outcrop.

When he got closer, the racing of his heart was even more apparent. Toph almost wanted to smirk at the thought of speaking to her creating such a response in him, but she was too angry to do anything but scowl before calling out, “What do you want?”

It was a testament to how much time they’d spent together that Sokka didn’t jump despite Toph detecting his presence while her back was to him. He walked around the rock to face her but didn’t make any moves to climb on it himself.

“To talk,” he said unnecessarily.

They fell into an awkward silence for just a second. It felt like a competition, and Toph didn’t want to be the one to break it. But the way Sokka’s heart was racing even faster than when he’d been approaching her left Toph thinking he’d be taking a while, and she was impatient.

“So now you want to talk?” she asked, crossing her arms against her chest. “You sure didn’t for the last month.”

Sokka reached up and tugged on his hair nervously as he answered.

“I guess if I say that I was busy with work you won’t believe me?”

Toph didn’t bother with a response. Sokka sighed and shifted on his feet before climbing onto the rock Toph was on. He wasn’t the best climber and slid backwards a few times. Toph remained silent until he was sitting cross-legged across from her on the rock.

“I get it,” he said flatly. “I’m an idiot, and I probably always will be.”

Toph snorted, the closest thing to a smile that she’d shown all day forming on her lips.

“Yeah, I already knew that. I just didn’t think you were the kind to completely avoid your problems, Sokka. Especially like that.”

The brief silence that fell between them then was more comfortable than any of the ones before. Sokka’s eyes were on Toph, and despite her face being turned away, Toph kept her palm pressed firm to the rock, analyzing Sokka’s every move.

“You’re right,” he said. “I should have told you that I had feelings for you, but I was worried about how you’d react.”

“Really?” Toph retorted. “You think I don’t like you too? I know you’re an idiot, Sokka, but that’s even—”

“No,” he said with a sigh. “I thought you did like me, but we’ve known each other for so long that I wasn’t sure how to handle it. You don’t do anything conventionally, Toph. Even though I know you, I don’t know you like that. Not yet at least. Making some kind of romantic speech or something didn’t seem like what you’d want. You’d probably punch me or something, but I didn’t know what to do. So, I avoided the whole thing instead. I figured I’d deal with it later. But then you ran off to Ba Sing Se before I could.”

“I’m sure you coming here now has everything to do with self-reflection while I was gone and not with Katara biting your head off the second we got back,” Toph said, tilting her head to the side and grinning.

She felt Sokka’s heart speed up in embarrassment. He scratched at his head and averted his eyes.

“That was a good motivator too,” he admitted. “But I would have done it soon anyway. It was getting ridiculous, wasn’t it?”

Toph snorted and leaned forward to punch Sokka on the arm. He let out a shout and moved away, rubbing at the spot where she’d made contact.

“You didn’t want to make a confession because I’d punch you or something, right?” she said as she sat back. “I had to prove your fears right.”

Sokka grumbled, but there was a grin on his face. He moved to sit beside Toph instead of across from her. Closer together, Toph’s nerves, which had been abating, returned in full force. Her fingers pressed hard into the stone, and she struggled to keep her breathing even as she felt Sokka’s eyes on her.

For a second, she waited for him to do something, but then she realized that was ridiculous. He’d already proven that he could take ages to do anything.

With a grunt of frustration, Toph grabbed his collar and pulled him into a kiss. Sokka let out a humph against her lips before returning the kiss. Both of them were smiling when they pulled away, but Toph quickly schooled her face into a frown, waving a finger in Sokka’s face.

“Try not to ignore me again,” she said firmly, smirking when Sokka swallowed nervously.

“Of course not,” he promised, relaxing slightly after Toph slugged him on the arm a second time.


End file.
